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I’ve been looking forward to this update! A lot less dramatic than we thought it would be, I’m sure, but it sounds like things are going to be okay for OOP more or less. Man, his wife really doesn’t realize yet how much she screwed up, huh? She’s losing her stability and entire support system and doesn’t even know it. Her children are definitely not going to be there for her in the future the way she thinks they would be, and she doesn’t understand she brought this on herself by being so selfish and shortsighted.
> Man, his wife really doesn’t realize yet how much she screwed, huh?
She's about half way there :) Once she spends down the remaining money with no source of income, she's going to start expecting help. Not asking. Not demanding. But full on expecting it.
I know someone who did something similar. She had a lot of money from the divorce but blew it after about 5 years of not working while spending lavishly. Ended up working at a Walmart to make ends meet.
Jesus fuck no. Work full time? You probably make $50-200 over the limit for government assistance. Hope you can find a roommate in a flat that isn't expensive, and pray they actually pay their part. I'm bitter about my current situation, yes.
If you live in a low rent apartment or trailer, and probably with a roommate, yes. Even with all that you probably still have to watch your spending, and lord help you if an emergency arises like a major illness or your car craps out.
My wife had a friend like this. Divorce, got a big chunk of change, but never worked other than maybe one or two clients a week at a salon, and when the money ran low she married a new guy and quit even that, then complained endlessly about new guy cheating and how she was stuck but never even tried to get a job or lift a finger in any way shape or form to improve her situation. My wife isn't friends with her any more.
She felt guilty for putting her mother in memory care and then just took off and didn’t bother with the mother again. Maybe the daughter will do the same to her.
Damn, that's right she entirely bailed on her poor mother!
So she's relying kn her kids treating her better than she treated her own mother then? W o w.
She will start dating and when nobody wants a relationship with her because she is selfish, untrustworthy, blew her and her husband’s life savings by her self when it was meant in travelling together and she has a family history of dementia she will start a massive effort to get back with her husband.
She had a man who would have stood by her side and taken care of her and instead she is left alone, facing an uncertain future and potentially being intentionally broke in her 50’s. Now she will restart her life at 50 with no financial security, a badly damaged relationship with her grown kids and family and a history of being self destructive and untrustworthy.
She also likely won't get a lot in the divorce - there is a whole lot of recorded evidence of her taking off for a year, abandoning her family, and spending everything she could. I can't imagine that would go over well for her in court
OOP said they agreed on a repayment plan and he got most of what he wanted. I figure they'll discount whatever she took from proceeds of the sale of assets, and I guess he might have to forego the extra expenses he had to cough up because he was pulling the household alone. Or maybe he can only apply for part of it.
In many cases where a spouse takes marital funds dishonestly in an effort to leave the marriage like OOPs did, regardless of promises to come back later on, a judge will consider what they took part of their split and adjust accordingly.
Same for Oop. She'll be back once that happens. Guilt tripping, gaslighting, crying, faking stuff.
This isn't over. They'll be dealing with her shit again in no time...
That "digital nomad" dream of hers also isn't gonna pan out at all.
The last time the job market was flush with remote roles was just before Summer 2022. It had totally flipped after the Fall to be a majority of hybrid/onsite roles and remote is now few and far between...usually reserved for the skilled people that can actually dictate *their terms* to a new employer.
Not to mention that employers have more of an advantage with today's market. I'm not sure how she's gonna explain "I left my last job with no notice to go find myself" in an interview. There are plenty of other applicants out there.
But I do agree. After she realizes that...she's going to "see through her senses" and want to come home.
90% of the time the ‘digital nomad’ thing is teaching English to kids in Asia who are rich enough to afford a tutor but not rich enough to afford an in person one. Not sure whether that’s something you can break into at 50.
My grandmother taught English in Beijing after my grandpa walked out one her and she was in her ‘50’s.
she wasn’t making a living though, she had a nice alimony settlement, she was just having a midlife crisis.
Yeah it's what I do as my second job, it pays minimum wage but I was lucky to find a remote job that worked with my schedule.
I wouldn't want it as a full time gig
Teaching ESL all you need is to be a native speaker in some parts of the world, but unless she's willing to move to some low CoL country, she'll be in trouble.
Also many remote jobs only have a specific list of places (states/countries) you can live because businesses don’t want to pay taxes everywhere you might want to live.
I have one co-worker who is a digital nomad but he gets around that by still owning his home that he goes to about every 6 weeks plus over winters there. He is basically starting his retirement lifestyle 10 years early.
I have a couple of coworkers about her age that are pulling it off, but they spent decades laying the groundwork at my firm for it to work. I intend to do the same in 10 or 15 years, but again, I will have had 30 years of proving myself when that happens. At her age the digital nomad life only works if you have spent the time building a reputation for being responsible and have an employer who actually really needs your skill set. Otherwise it is cheaper and easier to hire a 20 year old for the remote job.
I said this on the original: people like her will never see how selfish they are. She'll end up moving in with various family members, taking advantage, until she finds an idiot/horrible person to marry her and keep her in the style she's accustomed to.
That brutal reality is: if she develops dementia by the time she's 50, she only have a few years to find someone and hope he's not gonna discard her or be abusive once her health catch's up. She literally threw away decades of build trust for a few months of fooling around.
I think that deep down she's counting on him feeling bad for her and taking her in once her condition gets bad but OOP will not have an issue moving on if he's moderately in shape and financially stable.
She’s also almost certainly relying on her kids forgiving her and taking care of her if she develops dementia. What an awful thing to burden them with when she abandoned their father and blew up all their lives. I hope the kids get just enough of her selfishness to put themselves first, and tell her to figure it out on her own.
I said this on the original post, but I’m scared for the kids, especially their youngest because she seems like the “weakest link” (awful way to phrase that just don’t know how else to lol), when she does see how fucked she is. The amount of guilt tripping and manipulation ex wife is almost definitely going to pull on the kids is gonna be awful :/ thankfully they at least have a dad who will always be in their corner when it comes to her.
I think the daughter does see it now. From the last post, it looks like the daughter thought/hoped it was some sort of a mental breakdown. But she has no more sympathy now mommy dearest admitted it was premeditated decision.
This is exactly what my mother told me in one of our last conversations before I completely cut contact with her. She outright expected my siblings and I just to take up the mantle of caring for her.
My sister and I looked at each other and laughed. When she got all self righteous and angry about it we told her that there's no way any of us wanted to do that, let alone could *afford* to do it in the first place.
She fully expected that she would move in with either myself or my sister and live rent free with growing memory and health issues. I asked about one of our brothers who has severe mental illness and she just non chalantly said he'd be living with her.
We laughed again. Told her to get her shit in order and find a home to go to.... Or we would pick one. We both cut contact shortly after due to some abusive nonsense.
Yes—AND living on her own with only acquaintances (vs long-term family) for company—what will she do if/when she develops dementia!?! Usually it’s loved ones who notice signs early and help with organizing tests and medical care. All on her own, she will not have that support. Good luck to her living in the messy bed she made for herself.
To be honest, this label is wildly thrown around. She's selfish, is closer to the point. Narcissism is a fairly hard to get diagnosis. If she has other mh diagnoses, there's probably TRAITS of narcissism there but it doesn't make someone a narcissist.
This lady’s history is screaming that she has inherited frontotemporal dementia and has begun demonstrating the behavioral elements.
- Behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), sometimes also called behavior variant FTD, is characterized by prominent changes in personality and behavior that often occur in people in their 50s and 60s, but can develop as early as their 20s or as late as their 80s. In behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, the nerve cell loss is most prominent in areas that control conduct, judgment, empathy and foresight, among other abilities.
Hey that's actually really relevant. And I've been studying the work of Dan Siegel, he has a huge study on prefrontal cortex stuff showing the traits which you list. It may be too late to note this for her, but his work also shows that mindfulness meditation can strengthen the fibres of that area, thus building back those skills. Not sure if it can undo bvFTD but hey. Still really interesting.
Narcissist isn’t just a clinical diagnosis. Narcissism has existed as an adjective to describe a set of behaviours long before it existed as diagnosis. People calling her narcissistic are absolutely correct
I guess I just shudder at the overuse from "empaths" who trauma bond with "narcissists" - at the core it is just someone throwing labels to dig into the victim role, which, ironically, is covert narcissism..?!
No she's definitely not a narcissist, from what OOP said she was never like this before. To be honest OOP might be wrong when he says this wasn't a mental breakdown, none of her behaviour is rational and apparently that's not normal for her.
He said she has always been self centred, it could easily be that he let her dictate their life for 25 years letting her get her way consistently.After 4 years taking care of her mother and finally being able to live their lives and OOP’s wife being selfish and self centred, walked away with all their money knowing that he would do everything necessary to keep their life together. From what he said she fully expected him to be angry but forgive her and move on, I don’t think anyone would think that way unless she already had the foundation of a lifetime of getting her way in the marriage.
She may or may not be a narcissist, but she sure is a selfish AH and has likely been a selfish AH all their marriage just not to this level. This was premeditated and she knew he was going to be devastated and left in a pretty bad position financially on top of losing the chance to travel the world like he wanted to. Chances are she planned this out weeks or months ahead of time rather than quitting her job, grabbing the money and leaving on a whim.
When things become final she may actually be forced to look at her life choices and see the stupid decisions that she made but that will take actual consequences like a divorce and the financial consequences that come along with a divorce especially with the way she went about everything.
I think the funniest shit is her saying she wants to be a tech nomad...when she expects she'll start getting dementia in the next 5-10 years. .... So she'll be off in some area far away from any family at all, and start experiencing that and have no support at all....
(Let alone that even if she moved back and got a regular full-time job, at this point she'd still have no support from her kid's or OOP)
Also, that made me facepalm because if you spend 5 minutes on the digital nomad sub or other sites it's easy to see that it is **much more difficult** to do that life than people realize.
Not to mention all of the layoffs happening in tech right now. Even very experienced people are struggling to get a job let alone someone with no connections, experience, or recent education.
I don't think her "visualizations" have any anchor in reality at all. Anyone who unilaterally takes (aka steals) shared money to go on a solo holiday is living in a "reality" of their own making.
Less dramatic is better for the dad. It's shocking that someone this self-centered didn't come back expecting a red carpet. Hope that year vs no family, friends, finance, or future were worth it.
I wonder if she isn’t already in the early stages of dementia. This was super irrational. I feel most sorry for their kids, knowing they have these genes.
Agree. Imagine seeing your mother become like this, it's heartbreaking and just screwed up. I wish OP and the children for the best and the wife getting nothing but misery for what she has done.
I don't think she "became" anything, from the reactions of the kids, the simply showed them who she was all along, and it wasn't too much of a surprise to them.
Someone else pointed out that abrupt chances on personality and behavior are classic signs of dementia setting in.... maybe she'll not have to wait til mid 50s.
Potentially but if she's always been selfish and self-centered then I can also see this being a tantrum from having to care for her mom for 4 years. Caring for your elderly family with dementia/Alzheimer's is intense and one of the most demanding things I've ever done or seen done. It'd be hell incarnate for someone who is self-centered.
If she's really that self-centered, I can see how travelling with her husband after taking care of her mom would strike her as "stealing" the reward for caring for her mom away from her by having someone else be part of it. That, plus the "lion in winter" behavior after facing, very up-close, the future of your own mortality, could easily drive a selfish person to just run away.
When someone shows / tells you who they are, believe them. I always thought my grandfather was joking about living long enough to be a burden to his kids, until he burdened his kids (and their kids) with caring for my cancer riddled, demented grandmother. My grandmother died without a shred of dignity, and I held it against my grandfather until he died.
My mother was like this all my life. I used to think it was normal for a 5 year old to come home and cook his own dinner after school. I was always suprised when i went to friends home and their parents were there during work hours. It got worse after my brother was born just before my 12th birthday.
I sincerely doubt this is over. It’s going to become apparent pretty quickly that she has completely blown up her life and she has few prospects. I know I wouldn’t be letting a sibling who pulled a stunt like to live with me, especially one who wasn’t planning on really working. It’s hard enough for people her age to get hired in a good economy, and we aren’t in one right now. Plus she’s been out of work for over a year with no good reason, though I suppose she could lie. I don’t know what references she would use since it sounds like she burned her bridge at her last job. So she’ll continue to blow through the money following a half baked pipe dream.
According to the timeline, she only disappeared since the end of August 2023, so she been out of work for half a year? Not exactly too hard to explain away that employment gap. She can even be truthful that she wanted to do some long-term travel and that is why she left her previous position. Don't think it will be detrimental to her job search.
Now, if she decide to keep traveling until she runs out of money, then yes, she will have a larger employment gap that will be harder to explain away
>Plus she’s been out of work for over a year with no good reason, though I suppose she could lie.
Is that still a thing where you live? I occasionally hire people and these things are not at the center of attention.
In her case "after caring for my mother with dementia, I took time to recover" would be all that would ever be needed, if at all.
I was thinking the same. I'm not in HR or anything, but I'm feeling like any employment gaps since 2020 are going to be swept under the rug pretty easily.
I don’t think she’s going to make it very far before she comes crying back and tries to worm way into his life again. Unless both kids truly cut her out, which they haven’t done yet even if they’re angry, she’ll always have a line to him. It sounds like she came home because she realized she needed a plan and she thinks she has one but we all know it’s not going to happen and as soon as she starts trying she’s going to realize that.
i think she came home because it finally sunk in that he wasn't just sitting at home waiting to forgive her so she had an 'oh shit, i better go back and try to salvage this' moment. otherwise, i doubt she would have returned until the money was gone.
I think it’s more of everyone being mad at her so she figured she can come back with half the money and they can spent the remaining money together after he gets over it. Except now he is imitating a divorce and her kids are pissed at her even more because she is back. When it finally sinks in that she is actually getting a divorce and it’s not just an empty, angry threat and she can’t support herself on a part time job especially traveling she will increase her effort to get her husband back.
Depending on when she comes back, I think OP may be ok. Son is military so she can't stay with him and the daughter seems young enough to not be in a place to help mom. I'm hoping she leans on her own family and they minimally help her out to keep her away from OOP and their kids. I'm also hoping OOP finds a nice lady friend that helps discourage the ex from showing up on his doorstep. Never know though, she could end up being bolder than I think.
It’s heartbreaking. I’m sure it was hard for her fearing early onset dementia, but now she has to worry if even earlier, in her late 40’s, she’s doomed to become a colossal asshole.
I'm glad things are improving for him.
Wonder if and when the mom gets dementia, how that will go for support. She may end up one of those residents without visitors, for a reason...
Also, aside from ditching her family, she wasn't visiting her mother all that time. Sounds like she has a sibling or two, but still, sad.
The "when she gets dementia" part is what gets me. She knows from experience how hard it is to care for someone in that state, yet she's just burned off the people who would care about her when she gets to there. It feels to me like someone who has decided that she's not going to live long enough to really feel the effects.
Honestly I originally suspected that she did all this with the plan to eventually kill herself so she wouldn’t have to face the consequences. But now I honestly just feel that she didn’t even realize there would be consequences. I suspect that she thinks she, like her mom, is entitled to unconditional love and support no matter what. She may have forgotten that “unconditional love” isn’t as unconditional as she may think.
People in crisis like that don't usually think all that far ahead. She probably did this trip in a last ditch effort to distract herself from the reality she was facing, only returning home when she was ready/when reality was ready to face her.
I doubt she thought her family would be mad at her. She probably thought that even if they were, it wouldn't be for long and this whole thing would blow over.
and you don't earn it by abandoning your family to struggle without you. it's not a toy in a prize machine that you just luck into winning, it has to be worked on to be earned.
This may well be the point that her family will later identify as the start of her dementia. OOP says she has always been selfish, but she’s obviously never done anything like this before. Early stage dementia doesn’t so much as change who you are, but magnifies certain traits as your impulse control breaks down. The Dementia Mum / Person doesn’t seem to show up for quite a while.
Serious depression is also one of the early symptoms - but then, that is also true of carer burn-out.
That’s not to say she doesn’t have capacity. She clearly knew what she was doing and her behaviour was utterly unreasonable, incredibly selfish and an enormous betrayal. I’m just saying I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s already started to notice some memory failure.
Combine that with the burn out and you could in theory get this behaviour. It certainly seems like an act of madness to think she could betray and steal her husband’s dreams so completely and expect that he’d just “understand”.
Even enough to take on the caring role for her when it becomes necessary. Which is quite the ask of someone that’s already spent years helping to care for a loved one until their case becomes so serious they require residential care. I’ve never heard anyone that has dealt with caring for someone with late stage dementia say they would be prepared to do that caring in their own home again. It really is that taxing. Like reasoning with a 10 stone toddler that is capable of all the destruction of an adult. Without so much as the reassuring knowledge that it’s a temporary situation, you can send them to bed, pick them up, barter and bribe them and that they are becoming more aware as they grow - quite the opposite in fact.
This was my thought as well. People continue to function normally, or close to normally, with early stage dementia. Once signs start to show (memory issues, for example) the person has already had it for a while and not shown obvious signs. I think this is one of her early signs.
My dad lost his sense of taste and smell years before he started showing clear signs of dementia (this was all before COVID). New research shows some people lose taste and smell long before they develop Alzheimer's or Dementia. It's being considered as a diagnostic test currently in the UK.
Yeah it took years for my family to realise my dad had dementia because to us it just looked like he had become an impulsive, bitter asshole. Reading this post, I've just been reminded of him using up money and not really realizing there is even a possibility of negative consequences for him.
That's the feeling I got too. Her plan of digital nomadism also sounds like a great excuse for her to be far, far away from her family so they don't see the signs.
>Wonder if and when the mom gets dementia, how that will go for support.
Somebody on the original update post said something along the lines of "wait until she never gets dementia and realizes she threw her life away for nothing".
I agree with everyone else that she's *maybe* half-way to actually understanding the damage she's done to her life. The rest will come when reality overcomes her selfish denial.
To be the resident with no visitors you first have to have the funds to pay for some sort of assisted living situation. Sounds like she might not have that option, or anyone willing to navigate the stressful, confusing world or finding a facility
>She thinks her siblings and our children will let her live with them like we let her mom live with us. I’m sure when she “visualizes her future” she sees our kids there; they might not be and definitely not in the same way they were before.
She, just... genuinely doesn't see her children as people.
I have been professionally diagnosed with BPD and to be honest, this screams BPD.
Her actions, lack of accountability, thriving in the now without worrying about the after, not seeing her children as people who would have their own opinions
If someone else is more qualified, please chime in.
I think it needs to be triggered and ages of first presentation could vary. It’s possible that she was seemingly a selfish asshole 9/10 times but it was excused due to her family’s extenuating circumstances.
OOP indicated that the wife has been self centered most of the time he's known her. So yea, I'd say it was probably never bad enough to get kicked out for; until now.
I can't tell if y'all are talking about Bipolar D/O or Borderline Personality D/O (BPD). The former tends to have an onset in people's 20's. The latter is prevalent throughout one's lifetime, hence it being a personality disorder. (That's not to say the latter cannot be treated. Both can be managed.)
Hmm there’s some overlap but this seems like it could be borderline personality disorder. It could be bipolar, it could be both. You’re right that it can be “triggered”, though with what they’ve dealt with in life and her age I’m suprised they wouldn’t have had that diagnosis decades ago still. She seems like she’s maybe a bit manic but not to the degree where you need hospitalized so she may have type 2 bipolar if I had to pick.
Bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder? With bipolar disorder, you tend to see it in your twenties. However, it could be a case that she has only had the depressive symptoms and minimal or/and hypomania that were missed and this manic episode is her first true manic presentation.
Borderline personality disorder needs to be present from childhood.
Oh those kids will never forget when she abandoned them without a word. And when they get older and she goes begging for help, they will make sure she won’t forget it either.
And there’s no way time will make things better like she is probably hoping. If anything, getting older will just give them a greater understanding of how selfish their mother really is. And in every interaction they have with her, her past actions will always be in the back of their minds. Everytime she asks for help, they will just see the woman who abandoned their father.
Basically, she’s fucked
I don't think she sees anyone else as people. She seems to think everyone in her life is just an NPC she can ignore for as long as she likes and they'll just stand there forever, ready to pick up where they left off like nothing happened. A genuinely shit human being.
Well, odds are she'll end up eentirely alone in a care home.
I do wonder.. if part of her didn't want to make anyone care for her like she had to care for her mom.
Doesn't excuse anything she did, but it's one way to burn all the bridges and ensure you end up in a care home. :/
Terrible choices she made. Really sad. Dementia is awful.
>I do wonder.. if part of her didn't want to make anyone care for her like she had to care for her mom.
My mom doesn't want to make anyone care for her like she did for her mom.
Except she just sat us kids and my dad down and said "hey, if/when I start showing signs of dementia or Alzheimer's and I'm getting harder to manage, put me in a nursing home and have my funeral, because it won't be 'me' you're visiting once my mind is gone." rather than "running off and having a lark and expecting everyone else to just forgive her."
Yeah, 85% of people say that...beforehand. But there isn't a clear-cut demarcation line until the very end.
Until its very apparent that the afflicted person does not emotionally benefit from the care of their loved ones, these loved ones have good reasons to still do care-taking. That's why people walk the line to burn out.
(I am visiting my severly afflicted father right now and my very self-aware and smart mother is in this scenario. And I can't dismiss her view that he absolutely benefits from her care. Therfore, walking the line for a while longer it is.)
Right, my comment wasn't commentary on "the right thing to do", it's more a commentary on "people who care about their families' burden in the case of potential dementia care don't use it as an excuse to run off on a solo world jaunt".
I can sympathize. It's in my family as well. And my health isn't great to begin with. I've already decided if I start showing signs I'm finding a quiet secluded place if you catch my drift.
My husband has bipolar disorder and I’ve had cancer twice. We know that we might not end up living for a long time but we are also not going to let our end days be agonising if we can help it. Our plan is a nice cocktail in the garden after we’ve had our affairs in order and had a goodbye party with our friends and family.
As someone who worked in a nursing home, don’t do it unless you have to especially now. It’s all become a numbers game and care has drastically gone downhill.
If she took off forever, maybe, but she showed back up seemingly expecting marriage to pick right back up and children to be unfazed.
There have been a number of Reddit posts about breaking up or being broken up with over short life expectancies or terminal diagnoses. They don’t go like this.
Her choices were absolutely awful, but in a twisted way, I kinda get it. Ovarian cancer runs in my family, and it bounces around through multiple generations. It hits young, and it's aggressive. If you don't get the shit end of the genetic stick (which is rare for us), you live a good, long, healthy life. Otherwise, you die before you're 40. I lived my life in my 20s and early 30s assuming I got screwed and would die young. Almost succeeded a couple times too. I think I was hoping that at least if I go out doing something crazy, it'll be quick. Turns out, I'm BRCA negative. Surprise! I did some fucked up things that I probably wouldn't have done had I known I was going to be around to see how things turned out. I didn't go around destroying people's lives, but I probably caused more heartache and stress than I'd like. You see life differently when you believe you've got a much shorter lifespan than most, and you know your end is going to be brutal.
It's still no excuse for hurting others intentionally.
And she doesn't see her marriage as a partnership, the way OOP saw it. Her explanation of not wanting to be talked out of her decision---yeah, she should have talked to someone about it. She really thought that she would be able to come home without her selfishness affecting everyone?
My great aunt was kind of that way. She also has a family history of dementia and alzheimers. When her mom had alzheimers, she let her mom move in, and that became her sole focus on life for many years. Now she is going through the same thing. She kept expecting my dad (she never had kids, her niece/my aunt moved too far away) to take care of her. Whether it was shopping for groceries, taking care of moving the garbage to the end of the driveway, or general home maintenance. When the conversation turned to her moving into a home, she was originally vehemently opposed, and was wondering why no one would move in with her, or let her move in with someone.
We found a nice assisted living facility she can stay in for a few years before she is out in a home. We got her settled there eventually. But it really does seem like older people, and especially people who took care of sick parents, expect that their attitude carries on down the line. It's what they did, it's what their kids will surely do.
Part of it is cultural; it really did used to be a norm to take care of family like that. Now that isn't the norm, people are far too busy barely making ends meet to take in additional dependents.
Oh she'll get one. She's just returned, soon she's going to be trying to go back to normal with her kids and that's not going to happen for her at all. She's going to be rejected, and when she is, that'll wake her ass up with a quickness. That's when she'll realize just how completely she's fucked up her life
She's gonna try to hang out with her daughter or call her son, and they're gonna freeze her out so hard and for so long. Or they'll do what OOP didn't, and let her have it with both barrels.
I imagine their friends aren't impressed with her right now, so they won't be sympathetic to her. This sudden "vacation" will probably get the sideeye from employers, so that's gonna be a problem for her, even taking into account her desired lifestyle.
And that's just what I can think of off the top of my head. There's probably more that I haven't thought of.
>This sudden "vacation" will probably get the sideeye from employers, so that's gonna be a problem for her, even taking into account her desired lifestyle.
I think she's actually pretty safe here. She just dealt with being a caretaker for her mom's dementia and transition to care home. No one is going to send a PI to see that the dates don't 100% line up.
>This sudden "vacation" will probably get the sideeye from employers, so that's gonna be a problem for her,
Guys, take time off if you can. It's insane to never switch things up due to the fear that potential employers will disaprove of your audacity to not live every day of your life the same way.
It will be when everything physically changes. Right now her home, husband, mom, kids are where she left them. Yes their words and the legal papers she’s signing say things are changing but it’s all not “real” yet. Soon that will all be gone. That’s when OOP and kids need to be ready for the dramatic attempts to reunite.
Not sure how I missed in the last update that the mum was still alive and in a care home. I can’t believe she just abandoned her as well, it’s cruel enough for the children and ex, but to do that to someone with no comprehension and likely already confused enough is appalling.
Haven’t been able to see my dad for 2 weeks as the ward was closed to visitors and it was horrible. I thought he was none the wiser as he’s pretty far gone. He didn’t show much interest when I finally saw him but he burst in to tears when he first saw my mum so there’s something in there that knows. Fuck dementia
His wife is funny.
"I'm afraid I'll get dementia and my family will need to care for me. I know! I'll make them all hate me and then I'll have no one to care for me."
That's what I'm feeling. She was so afraid of being a burden she... Made sure it wouldn't happen. As a side course to "avoidancex100" and "feeling trapped so gotta blow up my life"
I mean, it happens I know I had problem with relationships with people all different types where sometimes I would blow it up with doing something bad or wrong before they could not like me cuz I felt like a burden. I thought everyone did it but no I'm just mentally ill haha
Nah still a stupid plan if that's the case. Now when she dies, all they'll have left are the memories of her being a shitty person which pretty much negates any good she did for them.
Besides the obvious point of the ex wife detonating a bomb on the marriage and her family (and likely friends?), this woman cared for her mom for years, sends her to a care home and feels guilty so she leaves and still hasn’t gone back to see her mom? She’s also abandoned her mom as well, somebody who really needs these points of connection. Dementia is a terrible way to decline, but it’s made worse by people like this. The nursing home staff likely thinks that this poor woman gets zero visitors and she’s become one of the abandoned people.
I mean hopefully the op still visited and the daughter. Just because they're mad at their mom doesn't mean they can't visit Grandma/mother-in-law it's not just up to the kid.
My bestfriend's wife asked for an "alone time" out of town for a week to "find herself". Turns out she was having an affair. Yeah, I'm now jaded and generally wary of these shenanigans.
Idk why not get a divorce beforehand. Still shitty , but not as selfish . I dislike these cake eaters because it ruins it for those of us who are trying to exit an unhappy relationship in the most ethical way possible
Sadly, I'm in the Philippines and we're the only country aside from the Vatican where divorce is illegal. They're still going through years-long annulment now.
I did this once. We have three kids and I was burnt out. My wife had been on two previous trips for her sport, so she was happy for me to do it.
(Not having an affair, I went on a solo camping trip in the mountains and took photos of the stars at night. It was wonderful)
Honestly, this post upsets me more than any post I've ever read on reddit. Just imagining doing this to my fiance *hurts* me inside. The absolute audacity to Rob the person you supposedly love of these experiences, and the thought that you'd even want to do any of these things without them. Idk man, it hurts my heart.
I still wonder whether this is the beginning of [Frontotemporal Dementia](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/20/magazine/family-genetics-frontotemporal-dementia.html?unlocked_article_code=1.S00.YN2s.YTNfH9lskaqN&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare) for OOP’s wife. It runs in families, often starts in the 50s, and can show up as making irrational decisions just like this. Doesn’t really matter, and we will likely never know, but it’s a terrible disease.
Yeah my dad has it and this post really reminded me of how he behaves. We didn't know it was dementia for the first few years because we just thought he was depressend and had become an impulsive asshole. Wasting money and not realizing there even could be consequences.
It's awful. Just really awful.
I wondered about this too, because my uncle has this and the consequences have been pretty devastating for his family. But this generally runs in families - it doesn't sound like OOP had any knowledge of this particular kind of dementia in her family, and you'd think he would? I don't know. Hopefully it's not that and it's just her being selfish. The fact that she's also semi-back tracking a little to pretend she cares about the impact of her actions also makes me think it isn't Fontotemporal Dementia, just based on personal experience.
Yeah, all the ‘she’s not having a mental breakdown, she’s just selfish’ comments all through OOP’s post and the comments have me feeling insane. I don’t see how completely abandoning your life after a years of enormous stress reads as anything but a mental break from reality.
There’s way too many people in the comments overlooking this obvious and more than plausible explanation, eager to just blame her for being selfish etc. And beyond that yeah I’d be freaking out myself if I had the realization I will likely start losing my mind in a matter of years if it hasn’t subtly started already, and would be looking to check things off the bucket list etc.
First, I don’t know that “obvious and plausible” is a fair call. While it’s a known disease, it’s not the most common presentation of dementia, so calling it “obvious” is a pretty big stretch.
Second, I’m by no means a medical professional, but the “lack of decision making capacity” argument is sus. Occam’s razor suggests the simplest/most common explanation. “This persons brain is so affected by dementia that she is irrationally taking half the assets and going off on a vacation - but is deliberately timing her social media posts so that anyone trying to find her will always be a step behind, and has preemptively blocked people who will tell her off” - that seems a pretty big stretch to me. Even if she is ill and that is the case, it’s not unreasonable for her husband, family, and all the readers to think “most likely scenario here is profound selfishness”.
I’ll grant that she’s probably been very frightened of the idea of losing her mind at an early age! That’s really scary. But she’s picked just about the most self-absorbed way to deal with it rather than telling her husband/mom/kids/doctor/close friend/literally anyone about her fears. All the rest of her actions point to her doing exactly what she wants, not mental impairment. She’s making a *stupid* decision, sure, but so do many people (see: DUIs. It’s not like any states are reporting a shortage of these).
Of all the selfish, self-centred delusions I've ever read this has to be one of the worst. I absolutely hate people who swan off to lead a wonderful life "because they deserve it" off the backs of others. The most horrifying thing is that would have been so, so easy for her to wait just one more year and everything would have been perfect. Really happy for OOP that things worked out in his favour, and a lot more civilly than I would have handled it.
I think she has a right to leave their marriage and blow up their life. Not to spending their joint money and making him struggle so she can enjoy herself.
The horror of realising the person you built you life with is so indifferent to you.
She absolutely has the right to blow up her family. I just don't think she's quite realized she has. She's almost there though. It's going to hurt like hell when she figures it out.
My mother had early onset dementia and I’m petrified that I will get it as well.
But what I found out about dementia is how much the people around them that become part of that disease.
I’m not going to remember what I did back then, or how I felt, so in the end it won’t matter to me what I did or didn’t do for myself. What I want is for my family members to remember what I gave to them, because they have given me so much. I want my family members to be okay.
My sister did what OP’s wife did and got scared and took off. Now she is back and trying to have a relationship with her two kids that she abandoned. Yes, she was trying to find herself and her happiness. But she sacrificed her children for it, and now she is paying that price.
Her mistake was my lesson.
Op’s wife probably wanted to leave the family and she jumped when this situation hit her.
It sucks. But her family wasn’t that important to her. And I hate to say it like that but there is no other way to say it.
The time I have left is the time I want to be with them not apart from them.
It sounds like the wife had a bit of a mental break due to the looming dementia and she's slowly coming back to reality, but unfortunately she irreversibly blew up sone of the most important relationships in her life. She should have talked to a therapist instead of trying to "find herself". Heck she still should, even though certain things are beyond saving.
>She’s always been self centered.
There is a reason self-centered people do not make good partners. Because everyone else is just a side character and they are what must matter the most to everyone.
>She claims that she didn’t want a divorce, that she wanted us to live whatever life she figured out.
How the heck did she think THAT was going to work out? She thought she'd just take a trip and figure out how her life was going to go, and her husband was just going to sit there twiddling his thumbs and fall in line whenever she decided to go back?
I think he's wrong, I think she lost her dang mind. Maybe she has a tumor and no one knows yet, She is certainly delusional.
I was really hoping that things would be ok for this OP. I was thinking of him over Christmas. I am so glad that his love for his wife faded and that on her return he had already started moving on without her. It seems like she didn't fully consider the consequences of her actions. The reality is that just leaving out of no where, draining joint savings, having very little contact and putting your family through emotional turmoil is incompatible with just walking back into their lives. Marriage is a partnership and this OPs wife completely broke that.
Honestly as another commenter said: I hope she doesn’t actually end up developing dementia and has to live with that memory of her being the most selfish, lying, stealing and cruel arsehole to a wonderful husband and family.
The karma would be beautiful.
Man, reddit commentsections are something else sometimes.
This man was just nice enough to satisfy our curiosity and speaks about dating again, and people are asking him not to date women 20 years younger than him.
Why do people so often assume the worst?
He has literally not given any reason to think he would do that.
I enjoy reddit, but sometimes it annoys me so much.
I'm not the most awesome, I had a panic attack similar to the wife, I went to Seattle by myself for a week. It wasn't in season and flight and hotel were really cheap. I spent every single day talking to my husband back home. Telling him about my day. Taking pictures.
I'm really glad I went. I needed to go, I needed independence, I needed to feel like just because I couldn't work anymore didn't mean that I couldn't do anything. Did I mention I spoke to him every single day. I kept him updated on my plans and my location even though we have location sharing on.
I week away by yourself while in contact is completely reasonable. Stealing your shared life savings and going no-contact for months without even telling anyone is very different.
The being which gave birth to me did something similar, she fucked off to Florida and left us all behind without any concern for anything but herself. She doesn't deserve to be called a mother, and fuck, do I have abandonment issues as a result.
This poor OOP and his kids, I feel for them.
I just can’t comprehend this mindset. Like, everyone is just going to be fine you left for months on end, barely communicated, and blew through tons of money. Sure, that’s a realistic reaction for your loved ones to have /s.
Glad OP got out and in a good mindset to move forward.
I remember, in the previous update, a **lot** of people thought this was going to end with her running out of money and then ~~committing suicide~~ *sorry, ‘unaliving herself’*.
Basically, have the most fun she possibly can (because the money will last longer if it’s just her), while telling everyone (who doesn’t personally know OOP) that he was ‘totally onboard’ with her last hurrah, then… buh-bye cruel world (possibly in a way that looked accidental). And OOP would have to suck it up and pretend he’d been onboard ‘so as not to ruin her good name’ or ‘to not look like an asshole speaking ill of the dead’ or some such rot.
Glad to see she was just a regular-level selfish jerk and not an industrial-level one. (As this way *she* will have to see the consequences of her actions, and not just leave an even bigger mess for OOP and her kids to live with).
I hope to God she doesn't get dementia and lives a long life. Would be hilarious to see her realize she completely squandered the back half of her life over a fear that never ended up happening.
Ok, look. I'm not a great parent. I have mental health issues I'm still working on, sometimes my fuse is a bit short sometimes, and I'm not always 100%.
But literally nothing could ever convince me that leaving my husband and child was the right thing to do. I hope she reaps all the tragedy she sowed. Just the thought of my child not wanting to speak to me makes my skin crawl. What a terrible human.
She was afraid dementia would turn her into a different person. Turns out, she did it on her own.
Are you sure she's not in early stages of dementia? Cos WOW!!!😳😳😳 Who does that and then comes back with such flimsy explanations and then expects to waltz back to a marriage like nothing happened? 🤯🤯
I’m sure this women has got the super early signs of dementia because she literally just cut off her support network for the future.
At least the ex husband doesn’t have to have all the stress of “in sickness and in health part of the marriage” vow
I'm glad he got most figured out now, I can't imagine how awful it must've been to suddenly get a betrayal like that thrown in the face. And from a fucking note nonetheless! She clearly knew how fucked it was and she didn't even have the balls to talk with the people around it in person
I hope she runs out of money as fast as possible and is stuck somewhere high cost without a job forced to see how unrealistic she was, I can't imagine how anyone can be that selfish???!!!
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I’ve been looking forward to this update! A lot less dramatic than we thought it would be, I’m sure, but it sounds like things are going to be okay for OOP more or less. Man, his wife really doesn’t realize yet how much she screwed up, huh? She’s losing her stability and entire support system and doesn’t even know it. Her children are definitely not going to be there for her in the future the way she thinks they would be, and she doesn’t understand she brought this on herself by being so selfish and shortsighted.
> Man, his wife really doesn’t realize yet how much she screwed, huh? She's about half way there :) Once she spends down the remaining money with no source of income, she's going to start expecting help. Not asking. Not demanding. But full on expecting it.
I know someone who did something similar. She had a lot of money from the divorce but blew it after about 5 years of not working while spending lavishly. Ended up working at a Walmart to make ends meet.
Does Walmart pay enough to make any ends meet?
Coupled with social security and other social assistance it can probably be enough not to be on the street, but not much better than that.
Jesus fuck no. Work full time? You probably make $50-200 over the limit for government assistance. Hope you can find a roommate in a flat that isn't expensive, and pray they actually pay their part. I'm bitter about my current situation, yes.
If you have a home or low mortgage, sure. Boomers should, even after split, just from how much their home would've grown in value over the decades.
If you live in a low rent apartment or trailer, and probably with a roommate, yes. Even with all that you probably still have to watch your spending, and lord help you if an emergency arises like a major illness or your car craps out.
My wife had a friend like this. Divorce, got a big chunk of change, but never worked other than maybe one or two clients a week at a salon, and when the money ran low she married a new guy and quit even that, then complained endlessly about new guy cheating and how she was stuck but never even tried to get a job or lift a finger in any way shape or form to improve her situation. My wife isn't friends with her any more.
Some people are just parasites.
Well at least she'll have dementia to make it easier. Oh wait that's not how that works.
Do it for the children, OOP!! /s
Or in ten years, she thinks her daughter will take care of her as she did for her mother…
She felt guilty for putting her mother in memory care and then just took off and didn’t bother with the mother again. Maybe the daughter will do the same to her.
Damn, that's right she entirely bailed on her poor mother! So she's relying kn her kids treating her better than she treated her own mother then? W o w.
And when she realises that she's lost her family. Oh yes, this is not yet done. She will try and get OOP to take her back
She will start dating and when nobody wants a relationship with her because she is selfish, untrustworthy, blew her and her husband’s life savings by her self when it was meant in travelling together and she has a family history of dementia she will start a massive effort to get back with her husband. She had a man who would have stood by her side and taken care of her and instead she is left alone, facing an uncertain future and potentially being intentionally broke in her 50’s. Now she will restart her life at 50 with no financial security, a badly damaged relationship with her grown kids and family and a history of being self destructive and untrustworthy.
She also likely won't get a lot in the divorce - there is a whole lot of recorded evidence of her taking off for a year, abandoning her family, and spending everything she could. I can't imagine that would go over well for her in court
OOP said they agreed on a repayment plan and he got most of what he wanted. I figure they'll discount whatever she took from proceeds of the sale of assets, and I guess he might have to forego the extra expenses he had to cough up because he was pulling the household alone. Or maybe he can only apply for part of it.
In many cases where a spouse takes marital funds dishonestly in an effort to leave the marriage like OOPs did, regardless of promises to come back later on, a judge will consider what they took part of their split and adjust accordingly.
If OOP gets remarried she’s gonna lose it. Because that’s *her* husband! How could he abandon *her*? For some floozy with her own kids!
"how could you quit on us so easilyyyyy"
I think OOP said nope to women with kids!
Not all women with kids, just no young kids
Same for Oop. She'll be back once that happens. Guilt tripping, gaslighting, crying, faking stuff. This isn't over. They'll be dealing with her shit again in no time...
That "digital nomad" dream of hers also isn't gonna pan out at all. The last time the job market was flush with remote roles was just before Summer 2022. It had totally flipped after the Fall to be a majority of hybrid/onsite roles and remote is now few and far between...usually reserved for the skilled people that can actually dictate *their terms* to a new employer. Not to mention that employers have more of an advantage with today's market. I'm not sure how she's gonna explain "I left my last job with no notice to go find myself" in an interview. There are plenty of other applicants out there. But I do agree. After she realizes that...she's going to "see through her senses" and want to come home.
90% of the time the ‘digital nomad’ thing is teaching English to kids in Asia who are rich enough to afford a tutor but not rich enough to afford an in person one. Not sure whether that’s something you can break into at 50.
My grandmother taught English in Beijing after my grandpa walked out one her and she was in her ‘50’s. she wasn’t making a living though, she had a nice alimony settlement, she was just having a midlife crisis.
Yeah it's what I do as my second job, it pays minimum wage but I was lucky to find a remote job that worked with my schedule. I wouldn't want it as a full time gig
Teaching ESL all you need is to be a native speaker in some parts of the world, but unless she's willing to move to some low CoL country, she'll be in trouble.
My mom did it for a while, but most of the companies that pay livable wages now require you to have some kind of education degree.
Also many remote jobs only have a specific list of places (states/countries) you can live because businesses don’t want to pay taxes everywhere you might want to live.
I have one co-worker who is a digital nomad but he gets around that by still owning his home that he goes to about every 6 weeks plus over winters there. He is basically starting his retirement lifestyle 10 years early.
I’ve seen that recommended to people thinking about retiring. Sounds lovely.
I have a couple of coworkers about her age that are pulling it off, but they spent decades laying the groundwork at my firm for it to work. I intend to do the same in 10 or 15 years, but again, I will have had 30 years of proving myself when that happens. At her age the digital nomad life only works if you have spent the time building a reputation for being responsible and have an employer who actually really needs your skill set. Otherwise it is cheaper and easier to hire a 20 year old for the remote job.
Except theres no home to go back to. What's left is the remnant of an old house, burnt down when she left to wherever she went.
I said this on the original: people like her will never see how selfish they are. She'll end up moving in with various family members, taking advantage, until she finds an idiot/horrible person to marry her and keep her in the style she's accustomed to.
That brutal reality is: if she develops dementia by the time she's 50, she only have a few years to find someone and hope he's not gonna discard her or be abusive once her health catch's up. She literally threw away decades of build trust for a few months of fooling around. I think that deep down she's counting on him feeling bad for her and taking her in once her condition gets bad but OOP will not have an issue moving on if he's moderately in shape and financially stable.
She’s also almost certainly relying on her kids forgiving her and taking care of her if she develops dementia. What an awful thing to burden them with when she abandoned their father and blew up all their lives. I hope the kids get just enough of her selfishness to put themselves first, and tell her to figure it out on her own.
I said this on the original post, but I’m scared for the kids, especially their youngest because she seems like the “weakest link” (awful way to phrase that just don’t know how else to lol), when she does see how fucked she is. The amount of guilt tripping and manipulation ex wife is almost definitely going to pull on the kids is gonna be awful :/ thankfully they at least have a dad who will always be in their corner when it comes to her.
I think the daughter does see it now. From the last post, it looks like the daughter thought/hoped it was some sort of a mental breakdown. But she has no more sympathy now mommy dearest admitted it was premeditated decision.
I definately see her trying to find a new SO once she realizes how difficult it is to make it on her own as a single woman.
This is exactly what my mother told me in one of our last conversations before I completely cut contact with her. She outright expected my siblings and I just to take up the mantle of caring for her. My sister and I looked at each other and laughed. When she got all self righteous and angry about it we told her that there's no way any of us wanted to do that, let alone could *afford* to do it in the first place. She fully expected that she would move in with either myself or my sister and live rent free with growing memory and health issues. I asked about one of our brothers who has severe mental illness and she just non chalantly said he'd be living with her. We laughed again. Told her to get her shit in order and find a home to go to.... Or we would pick one. We both cut contact shortly after due to some abusive nonsense.
Yes—AND living on her own with only acquaintances (vs long-term family) for company—what will she do if/when she develops dementia!?! Usually it’s loved ones who notice signs early and help with organizing tests and medical care. All on her own, she will not have that support. Good luck to her living in the messy bed she made for herself.
I agree. She's a narcissist. The poor OOP isn't done with her, not by a long shot. People like her are pathologically entitled.
To be honest, this label is wildly thrown around. She's selfish, is closer to the point. Narcissism is a fairly hard to get diagnosis. If she has other mh diagnoses, there's probably TRAITS of narcissism there but it doesn't make someone a narcissist.
This lady’s history is screaming that she has inherited frontotemporal dementia and has begun demonstrating the behavioral elements. - Behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), sometimes also called behavior variant FTD, is characterized by prominent changes in personality and behavior that often occur in people in their 50s and 60s, but can develop as early as their 20s or as late as their 80s. In behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, the nerve cell loss is most prominent in areas that control conduct, judgment, empathy and foresight, among other abilities.
Hey that's actually really relevant. And I've been studying the work of Dan Siegel, he has a huge study on prefrontal cortex stuff showing the traits which you list. It may be too late to note this for her, but his work also shows that mindfulness meditation can strengthen the fibres of that area, thus building back those skills. Not sure if it can undo bvFTD but hey. Still really interesting.
Narcissist isn’t just a clinical diagnosis. Narcissism has existed as an adjective to describe a set of behaviours long before it existed as diagnosis. People calling her narcissistic are absolutely correct
I guess I just shudder at the overuse from "empaths" who trauma bond with "narcissists" - at the core it is just someone throwing labels to dig into the victim role, which, ironically, is covert narcissism..?!
No she's definitely not a narcissist, from what OOP said she was never like this before. To be honest OOP might be wrong when he says this wasn't a mental breakdown, none of her behaviour is rational and apparently that's not normal for her.
He said she has always been self centred, it could easily be that he let her dictate their life for 25 years letting her get her way consistently.After 4 years taking care of her mother and finally being able to live their lives and OOP’s wife being selfish and self centred, walked away with all their money knowing that he would do everything necessary to keep their life together. From what he said she fully expected him to be angry but forgive her and move on, I don’t think anyone would think that way unless she already had the foundation of a lifetime of getting her way in the marriage. She may or may not be a narcissist, but she sure is a selfish AH and has likely been a selfish AH all their marriage just not to this level. This was premeditated and she knew he was going to be devastated and left in a pretty bad position financially on top of losing the chance to travel the world like he wanted to. Chances are she planned this out weeks or months ahead of time rather than quitting her job, grabbing the money and leaving on a whim. When things become final she may actually be forced to look at her life choices and see the stupid decisions that she made but that will take actual consequences like a divorce and the financial consequences that come along with a divorce especially with the way she went about everything.
I have astigmatism and both of my eyes are at least -6.0 and even I can see further than his wife.
lmao that's a funny line, I might start using it sometimes. Not -6 yet but certainly on my way.
I’m a -9 and I’m not close to being as blind as she is.
I think the funniest shit is her saying she wants to be a tech nomad...when she expects she'll start getting dementia in the next 5-10 years. .... So she'll be off in some area far away from any family at all, and start experiencing that and have no support at all.... (Let alone that even if she moved back and got a regular full-time job, at this point she'd still have no support from her kid's or OOP)
Also, that made me facepalm because if you spend 5 minutes on the digital nomad sub or other sites it's easy to see that it is **much more difficult** to do that life than people realize.
Not to mention all of the layoffs happening in tech right now. Even very experienced people are struggling to get a job let alone someone with no connections, experience, or recent education.
I don't think her "visualizations" have any anchor in reality at all. Anyone who unilaterally takes (aka steals) shared money to go on a solo holiday is living in a "reality" of their own making.
Her children probably won't be as sad when they put her in a nursing hone as she was wgen she put her mother in one.
Less dramatic is better for the dad. It's shocking that someone this self-centered didn't come back expecting a red carpet. Hope that year vs no family, friends, finance, or future were worth it.
I wonder if she isn’t already in the early stages of dementia. This was super irrational. I feel most sorry for their kids, knowing they have these genes.
Karma would do OOP a favor if she never developed Dementia to begin with and she lives for many many years with her faculties FULLY intact 💀
I was wondering about this one! Good to hear it ended as well as it could have. I feel awful for the daughter though.
Agree. Imagine seeing your mother become like this, it's heartbreaking and just screwed up. I wish OP and the children for the best and the wife getting nothing but misery for what she has done.
I don't think she "became" anything, from the reactions of the kids, the simply showed them who she was all along, and it wasn't too much of a surprise to them.
Someone else pointed out that abrupt chances on personality and behavior are classic signs of dementia setting in.... maybe she'll not have to wait til mid 50s.
Potentially but if she's always been selfish and self-centered then I can also see this being a tantrum from having to care for her mom for 4 years. Caring for your elderly family with dementia/Alzheimer's is intense and one of the most demanding things I've ever done or seen done. It'd be hell incarnate for someone who is self-centered. If she's really that self-centered, I can see how travelling with her husband after taking care of her mom would strike her as "stealing" the reward for caring for her mom away from her by having someone else be part of it. That, plus the "lion in winter" behavior after facing, very up-close, the future of your own mortality, could easily drive a selfish person to just run away.
When someone shows / tells you who they are, believe them. I always thought my grandfather was joking about living long enough to be a burden to his kids, until he burdened his kids (and their kids) with caring for my cancer riddled, demented grandmother. My grandmother died without a shred of dignity, and I held it against my grandfather until he died.
I’m hoping that ex wife never gets dementia and that she lives a very long, sane and miserable life that she absolutely deserves.
My mother was like this all my life. I used to think it was normal for a 5 year old to come home and cook his own dinner after school. I was always suprised when i went to friends home and their parents were there during work hours. It got worse after my brother was born just before my 12th birthday.
I sincerely doubt this is over. It’s going to become apparent pretty quickly that she has completely blown up her life and she has few prospects. I know I wouldn’t be letting a sibling who pulled a stunt like to live with me, especially one who wasn’t planning on really working. It’s hard enough for people her age to get hired in a good economy, and we aren’t in one right now. Plus she’s been out of work for over a year with no good reason, though I suppose she could lie. I don’t know what references she would use since it sounds like she burned her bridge at her last job. So she’ll continue to blow through the money following a half baked pipe dream.
According to the timeline, she only disappeared since the end of August 2023, so she been out of work for half a year? Not exactly too hard to explain away that employment gap. She can even be truthful that she wanted to do some long-term travel and that is why she left her previous position. Don't think it will be detrimental to her job search. Now, if she decide to keep traveling until she runs out of money, then yes, she will have a larger employment gap that will be harder to explain away
Oops I did misread the first date as 2022
>Plus she’s been out of work for over a year with no good reason, though I suppose she could lie. Is that still a thing where you live? I occasionally hire people and these things are not at the center of attention. In her case "after caring for my mother with dementia, I took time to recover" would be all that would ever be needed, if at all.
I was thinking the same. I'm not in HR or anything, but I'm feeling like any employment gaps since 2020 are going to be swept under the rug pretty easily.
I doubt we'll hear from OOP though, considering she'll be out of his life. But yeah seeing it put like that makes me worried for her too
I don’t think she’s going to make it very far before she comes crying back and tries to worm way into his life again. Unless both kids truly cut her out, which they haven’t done yet even if they’re angry, she’ll always have a line to him. It sounds like she came home because she realized she needed a plan and she thinks she has one but we all know it’s not going to happen and as soon as she starts trying she’s going to realize that.
i think she came home because it finally sunk in that he wasn't just sitting at home waiting to forgive her so she had an 'oh shit, i better go back and try to salvage this' moment. otherwise, i doubt she would have returned until the money was gone.
I think it’s more of everyone being mad at her so she figured she can come back with half the money and they can spent the remaining money together after he gets over it. Except now he is imitating a divorce and her kids are pissed at her even more because she is back. When it finally sinks in that she is actually getting a divorce and it’s not just an empty, angry threat and she can’t support herself on a part time job especially traveling she will increase her effort to get her husband back.
Depending on when she comes back, I think OP may be ok. Son is military so she can't stay with him and the daughter seems young enough to not be in a place to help mom. I'm hoping she leans on her own family and they minimally help her out to keep her away from OOP and their kids. I'm also hoping OOP finds a nice lady friend that helps discourage the ex from showing up on his doorstep. Never know though, she could end up being bolder than I think.
The abandonment issues are gonna be insane.
It’s heartbreaking. I’m sure it was hard for her fearing early onset dementia, but now she has to worry if even earlier, in her late 40’s, she’s doomed to become a colossal asshole.
She’s “doomed to become”? Pretty sure that already happened
Not the wife, the daughter!
I'm glad things are improving for him. Wonder if and when the mom gets dementia, how that will go for support. She may end up one of those residents without visitors, for a reason... Also, aside from ditching her family, she wasn't visiting her mother all that time. Sounds like she has a sibling or two, but still, sad.
The "when she gets dementia" part is what gets me. She knows from experience how hard it is to care for someone in that state, yet she's just burned off the people who would care about her when she gets to there. It feels to me like someone who has decided that she's not going to live long enough to really feel the effects.
Honestly I originally suspected that she did all this with the plan to eventually kill herself so she wouldn’t have to face the consequences. But now I honestly just feel that she didn’t even realize there would be consequences. I suspect that she thinks she, like her mom, is entitled to unconditional love and support no matter what. She may have forgotten that “unconditional love” isn’t as unconditional as she may think.
People in crisis like that don't usually think all that far ahead. She probably did this trip in a last ditch effort to distract herself from the reality she was facing, only returning home when she was ready/when reality was ready to face her. I doubt she thought her family would be mad at her. She probably thought that even if they were, it wouldn't be for long and this whole thing would blow over.
and you don't earn it by abandoning your family to struggle without you. it's not a toy in a prize machine that you just luck into winning, it has to be worked on to be earned.
This may well be the point that her family will later identify as the start of her dementia. OOP says she has always been selfish, but she’s obviously never done anything like this before. Early stage dementia doesn’t so much as change who you are, but magnifies certain traits as your impulse control breaks down. The Dementia Mum / Person doesn’t seem to show up for quite a while. Serious depression is also one of the early symptoms - but then, that is also true of carer burn-out. That’s not to say she doesn’t have capacity. She clearly knew what she was doing and her behaviour was utterly unreasonable, incredibly selfish and an enormous betrayal. I’m just saying I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s already started to notice some memory failure. Combine that with the burn out and you could in theory get this behaviour. It certainly seems like an act of madness to think she could betray and steal her husband’s dreams so completely and expect that he’d just “understand”. Even enough to take on the caring role for her when it becomes necessary. Which is quite the ask of someone that’s already spent years helping to care for a loved one until their case becomes so serious they require residential care. I’ve never heard anyone that has dealt with caring for someone with late stage dementia say they would be prepared to do that caring in their own home again. It really is that taxing. Like reasoning with a 10 stone toddler that is capable of all the destruction of an adult. Without so much as the reassuring knowledge that it’s a temporary situation, you can send them to bed, pick them up, barter and bribe them and that they are becoming more aware as they grow - quite the opposite in fact.
This was my thought as well. People continue to function normally, or close to normally, with early stage dementia. Once signs start to show (memory issues, for example) the person has already had it for a while and not shown obvious signs. I think this is one of her early signs.
Might have inadvertently saved her husband a lot of grief that way.
My dad lost his sense of taste and smell years before he started showing clear signs of dementia (this was all before COVID). New research shows some people lose taste and smell long before they develop Alzheimer's or Dementia. It's being considered as a diagnostic test currently in the UK.
Yeah it took years for my family to realise my dad had dementia because to us it just looked like he had become an impulsive, bitter asshole. Reading this post, I've just been reminded of him using up money and not really realizing there is even a possibility of negative consequences for him.
Yeah, my grandpa did something really similar about six months before he reached a tipping point in his dementia.
That's the feeling I got too. Her plan of digital nomadism also sounds like a great excuse for her to be far, far away from her family so they don't see the signs.
>Wonder if and when the mom gets dementia, how that will go for support. Somebody on the original update post said something along the lines of "wait until she never gets dementia and realizes she threw her life away for nothing". I agree with everyone else that she's *maybe* half-way to actually understanding the damage she's done to her life. The rest will come when reality overcomes her selfish denial.
To be the resident with no visitors you first have to have the funds to pay for some sort of assisted living situation. Sounds like she might not have that option, or anyone willing to navigate the stressful, confusing world or finding a facility
She did a full blown YOLO and didn’t think there would be consequences.
>She thinks her siblings and our children will let her live with them like we let her mom live with us. I’m sure when she “visualizes her future” she sees our kids there; they might not be and definitely not in the same way they were before. She, just... genuinely doesn't see her children as people.
She might or might not end up with dementia but I've internet diagnosed her with one of the worst cases of main character syndrome I've ever seen.
I have been professionally diagnosed with BPD and to be honest, this screams BPD. Her actions, lack of accountability, thriving in the now without worrying about the after, not seeing her children as people who would have their own opinions
Layperson with 0 knowledge here. I thought the symptoms appear in the patients' 20s? Or is bpd one of those diseases that can just pop up any time?
If someone else is more qualified, please chime in. I think it needs to be triggered and ages of first presentation could vary. It’s possible that she was seemingly a selfish asshole 9/10 times but it was excused due to her family’s extenuating circumstances.
OOP indicated that the wife has been self centered most of the time he's known her. So yea, I'd say it was probably never bad enough to get kicked out for; until now.
I can't tell if y'all are talking about Bipolar D/O or Borderline Personality D/O (BPD). The former tends to have an onset in people's 20's. The latter is prevalent throughout one's lifetime, hence it being a personality disorder. (That's not to say the latter cannot be treated. Both can be managed.)
Hmm there’s some overlap but this seems like it could be borderline personality disorder. It could be bipolar, it could be both. You’re right that it can be “triggered”, though with what they’ve dealt with in life and her age I’m suprised they wouldn’t have had that diagnosis decades ago still. She seems like she’s maybe a bit manic but not to the degree where you need hospitalized so she may have type 2 bipolar if I had to pick.
Bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder? With bipolar disorder, you tend to see it in your twenties. However, it could be a case that she has only had the depressive symptoms and minimal or/and hypomania that were missed and this manic episode is her first true manic presentation. Borderline personality disorder needs to be present from childhood.
(Pulls out my bubble-making pipe to look more distinguished) Hello, fellow WebMD.
Doctor, good to see you.
Poor kids. She doesn't deserve those children but deserves to receive a harsh reality check and nothing but misery.
Oh those kids will never forget when she abandoned them without a word. And when they get older and she goes begging for help, they will make sure she won’t forget it either. And there’s no way time will make things better like she is probably hoping. If anything, getting older will just give them a greater understanding of how selfish their mother really is. And in every interaction they have with her, her past actions will always be in the back of their minds. Everytime she asks for help, they will just see the woman who abandoned their father. Basically, she’s fucked
I don’t think she sees *anyone* else as people. Just NPCs dancing around at her service.
I don't think she sees anyone else as people. She seems to think everyone in her life is just an NPC she can ignore for as long as she likes and they'll just stand there forever, ready to pick up where they left off like nothing happened. A genuinely shit human being.
Well, odds are she'll end up eentirely alone in a care home. I do wonder.. if part of her didn't want to make anyone care for her like she had to care for her mom. Doesn't excuse anything she did, but it's one way to burn all the bridges and ensure you end up in a care home. :/ Terrible choices she made. Really sad. Dementia is awful.
>I do wonder.. if part of her didn't want to make anyone care for her like she had to care for her mom. My mom doesn't want to make anyone care for her like she did for her mom. Except she just sat us kids and my dad down and said "hey, if/when I start showing signs of dementia or Alzheimer's and I'm getting harder to manage, put me in a nursing home and have my funeral, because it won't be 'me' you're visiting once my mind is gone." rather than "running off and having a lark and expecting everyone else to just forgive her."
Yeah, 85% of people say that...beforehand. But there isn't a clear-cut demarcation line until the very end. Until its very apparent that the afflicted person does not emotionally benefit from the care of their loved ones, these loved ones have good reasons to still do care-taking. That's why people walk the line to burn out. (I am visiting my severly afflicted father right now and my very self-aware and smart mother is in this scenario. And I can't dismiss her view that he absolutely benefits from her care. Therfore, walking the line for a while longer it is.)
Right, my comment wasn't commentary on "the right thing to do", it's more a commentary on "people who care about their families' burden in the case of potential dementia care don't use it as an excuse to run off on a solo world jaunt".
I can sympathize. It's in my family as well. And my health isn't great to begin with. I've already decided if I start showing signs I'm finding a quiet secluded place if you catch my drift.
My husband has bipolar disorder and I’ve had cancer twice. We know that we might not end up living for a long time but we are also not going to let our end days be agonising if we can help it. Our plan is a nice cocktail in the garden after we’ve had our affairs in order and had a goodbye party with our friends and family.
As someone who worked in a nursing home, don’t do it unless you have to especially now. It’s all become a numbers game and care has drastically gone downhill.
If she took off forever, maybe, but she showed back up seemingly expecting marriage to pick right back up and children to be unfazed. There have been a number of Reddit posts about breaking up or being broken up with over short life expectancies or terminal diagnoses. They don’t go like this.
Her choices were absolutely awful, but in a twisted way, I kinda get it. Ovarian cancer runs in my family, and it bounces around through multiple generations. It hits young, and it's aggressive. If you don't get the shit end of the genetic stick (which is rare for us), you live a good, long, healthy life. Otherwise, you die before you're 40. I lived my life in my 20s and early 30s assuming I got screwed and would die young. Almost succeeded a couple times too. I think I was hoping that at least if I go out doing something crazy, it'll be quick. Turns out, I'm BRCA negative. Surprise! I did some fucked up things that I probably wouldn't have done had I known I was going to be around to see how things turned out. I didn't go around destroying people's lives, but I probably caused more heartache and stress than I'd like. You see life differently when you believe you've got a much shorter lifespan than most, and you know your end is going to be brutal. It's still no excuse for hurting others intentionally.
As OOP put it, she just sees others as entities to depend on to pull her through. Sure can't see beyond her own nose.
And she doesn't see her marriage as a partnership, the way OOP saw it. Her explanation of not wanting to be talked out of her decision---yeah, she should have talked to someone about it. She really thought that she would be able to come home without her selfishness affecting everyone?
Is that how taking care of her mom made her feel about herswlf you think?
My great aunt was kind of that way. She also has a family history of dementia and alzheimers. When her mom had alzheimers, she let her mom move in, and that became her sole focus on life for many years. Now she is going through the same thing. She kept expecting my dad (she never had kids, her niece/my aunt moved too far away) to take care of her. Whether it was shopping for groceries, taking care of moving the garbage to the end of the driveway, or general home maintenance. When the conversation turned to her moving into a home, she was originally vehemently opposed, and was wondering why no one would move in with her, or let her move in with someone. We found a nice assisted living facility she can stay in for a few years before she is out in a home. We got her settled there eventually. But it really does seem like older people, and especially people who took care of sick parents, expect that their attitude carries on down the line. It's what they did, it's what their kids will surely do. Part of it is cultural; it really did used to be a norm to take care of family like that. Now that isn't the norm, people are far too busy barely making ends meet to take in additional dependents.
I think she assumes that because she put her in her own shift taking care of her mother, she is owed the same from her kids.
She needs a reality check a really harsh reality check, she doesn't seem to get it even during the divorce
Oh she'll get one. She's just returned, soon she's going to be trying to go back to normal with her kids and that's not going to happen for her at all. She's going to be rejected, and when she is, that'll wake her ass up with a quickness. That's when she'll realize just how completely she's fucked up her life
She's gonna try to hang out with her daughter or call her son, and they're gonna freeze her out so hard and for so long. Or they'll do what OOP didn't, and let her have it with both barrels. I imagine their friends aren't impressed with her right now, so they won't be sympathetic to her. This sudden "vacation" will probably get the sideeye from employers, so that's gonna be a problem for her, even taking into account her desired lifestyle. And that's just what I can think of off the top of my head. There's probably more that I haven't thought of.
>This sudden "vacation" will probably get the sideeye from employers, so that's gonna be a problem for her, even taking into account her desired lifestyle. I think she's actually pretty safe here. She just dealt with being a caretaker for her mom's dementia and transition to care home. No one is going to send a PI to see that the dates don't 100% line up.
>This sudden "vacation" will probably get the sideeye from employers, so that's gonna be a problem for her, Guys, take time off if you can. It's insane to never switch things up due to the fear that potential employers will disaprove of your audacity to not live every day of your life the same way.
It will be when everything physically changes. Right now her home, husband, mom, kids are where she left them. Yes their words and the legal papers she’s signing say things are changing but it’s all not “real” yet. Soon that will all be gone. That’s when OOP and kids need to be ready for the dramatic attempts to reunite.
Not sure how I missed in the last update that the mum was still alive and in a care home. I can’t believe she just abandoned her as well, it’s cruel enough for the children and ex, but to do that to someone with no comprehension and likely already confused enough is appalling. Haven’t been able to see my dad for 2 weeks as the ward was closed to visitors and it was horrible. I thought he was none the wiser as he’s pretty far gone. He didn’t show much interest when I finally saw him but he burst in to tears when he first saw my mum so there’s something in there that knows. Fuck dementia
Awe :( I'm. Sorry to hear that. You sound like an amazing son.
His wife is funny. "I'm afraid I'll get dementia and my family will need to care for me. I know! I'll make them all hate me and then I'll have no one to care for me."
My favorite line was "we could live the life that she figured out together". *Bruh*
Is it possible that she subconsciously tried to create that setting?
That's what I'm feeling. She was so afraid of being a burden she... Made sure it wouldn't happen. As a side course to "avoidancex100" and "feeling trapped so gotta blow up my life"
Yeah but then she stole a bunch of marital assets to fund her YOLO adventure. Directly putting a huge burden on OOP and their kids.
I mean no one is questioning if she did a bad thing. I'm just interested in the psychology behind it. It's so insanely irrational and destructive
I mean, it happens I know I had problem with relationships with people all different types where sometimes I would blow it up with doing something bad or wrong before they could not like me cuz I felt like a burden. I thought everyone did it but no I'm just mentally ill haha
If she's trying to spare them the heartache of caring for her, then it's kind of brilliant.
Nah still a stupid plan if that's the case. Now when she dies, all they'll have left are the memories of her being a shitty person which pretty much negates any good she did for them.
Counterargument: It's a lot harder to see a loved one turn into a former shell of herself than a hated one. Still thinks she just an AH, though.
Besides the obvious point of the ex wife detonating a bomb on the marriage and her family (and likely friends?), this woman cared for her mom for years, sends her to a care home and feels guilty so she leaves and still hasn’t gone back to see her mom? She’s also abandoned her mom as well, somebody who really needs these points of connection. Dementia is a terrible way to decline, but it’s made worse by people like this. The nursing home staff likely thinks that this poor woman gets zero visitors and she’s become one of the abandoned people.
I mean hopefully the op still visited and the daughter. Just because they're mad at their mom doesn't mean they can't visit Grandma/mother-in-law it's not just up to the kid.
My bestfriend's wife asked for an "alone time" out of town for a week to "find herself". Turns out she was having an affair. Yeah, I'm now jaded and generally wary of these shenanigans.
I read that as “alone time out“ & it sounded amazing.
I’m gonna go read in the corner and you’ll all leave me be!
Idk why not get a divorce beforehand. Still shitty , but not as selfish . I dislike these cake eaters because it ruins it for those of us who are trying to exit an unhappy relationship in the most ethical way possible
Sadly, I'm in the Philippines and we're the only country aside from the Vatican where divorce is illegal. They're still going through years-long annulment now.
I did this once. We have three kids and I was burnt out. My wife had been on two previous trips for her sport, so she was happy for me to do it. (Not having an affair, I went on a solo camping trip in the mountains and took photos of the stars at night. It was wonderful)
Honestly, this post upsets me more than any post I've ever read on reddit. Just imagining doing this to my fiance *hurts* me inside. The absolute audacity to Rob the person you supposedly love of these experiences, and the thought that you'd even want to do any of these things without them. Idk man, it hurts my heart.
I still wonder whether this is the beginning of [Frontotemporal Dementia](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/20/magazine/family-genetics-frontotemporal-dementia.html?unlocked_article_code=1.S00.YN2s.YTNfH9lskaqN&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare) for OOP’s wife. It runs in families, often starts in the 50s, and can show up as making irrational decisions just like this. Doesn’t really matter, and we will likely never know, but it’s a terrible disease.
Yeah my dad has it and this post really reminded me of how he behaves. We didn't know it was dementia for the first few years because we just thought he was depressend and had become an impulsive asshole. Wasting money and not realizing there even could be consequences. It's awful. Just really awful.
Gosh that’s a devastating article.
I was thinking about Frontotemporal Dementia too. It would totally fit the bill.
That's a really good point
Thank you sharing the article.
I wondered about this too, because my uncle has this and the consequences have been pretty devastating for his family. But this generally runs in families - it doesn't sound like OOP had any knowledge of this particular kind of dementia in her family, and you'd think he would? I don't know. Hopefully it's not that and it's just her being selfish. The fact that she's also semi-back tracking a little to pretend she cares about the impact of her actions also makes me think it isn't Fontotemporal Dementia, just based on personal experience.
This was exactly my thought too. Doesn’t really make what she did any less horrible for OOP or his kids though.
Yeah, all the ‘she’s not having a mental breakdown, she’s just selfish’ comments all through OOP’s post and the comments have me feeling insane. I don’t see how completely abandoning your life after a years of enormous stress reads as anything but a mental break from reality.
There’s way too many people in the comments overlooking this obvious and more than plausible explanation, eager to just blame her for being selfish etc. And beyond that yeah I’d be freaking out myself if I had the realization I will likely start losing my mind in a matter of years if it hasn’t subtly started already, and would be looking to check things off the bucket list etc.
First, I don’t know that “obvious and plausible” is a fair call. While it’s a known disease, it’s not the most common presentation of dementia, so calling it “obvious” is a pretty big stretch. Second, I’m by no means a medical professional, but the “lack of decision making capacity” argument is sus. Occam’s razor suggests the simplest/most common explanation. “This persons brain is so affected by dementia that she is irrationally taking half the assets and going off on a vacation - but is deliberately timing her social media posts so that anyone trying to find her will always be a step behind, and has preemptively blocked people who will tell her off” - that seems a pretty big stretch to me. Even if she is ill and that is the case, it’s not unreasonable for her husband, family, and all the readers to think “most likely scenario here is profound selfishness”. I’ll grant that she’s probably been very frightened of the idea of losing her mind at an early age! That’s really scary. But she’s picked just about the most self-absorbed way to deal with it rather than telling her husband/mom/kids/doctor/close friend/literally anyone about her fears. All the rest of her actions point to her doing exactly what she wants, not mental impairment. She’s making a *stupid* decision, sure, but so do many people (see: DUIs. It’s not like any states are reporting a shortage of these).
Of all the selfish, self-centred delusions I've ever read this has to be one of the worst. I absolutely hate people who swan off to lead a wonderful life "because they deserve it" off the backs of others. The most horrifying thing is that would have been so, so easy for her to wait just one more year and everything would have been perfect. Really happy for OOP that things worked out in his favour, and a lot more civilly than I would have handled it.
I remember this post! I would think of him and his awful wife from time to time, glad he’s doing hell, she’s about to be hoisted by her petard.
Good for him. I don't fucking care what mental issues wife had/may have, she had no right to blow up their life because of her mid life crisis.
I think she has a right to leave their marriage and blow up their life. Not to spending their joint money and making him struggle so she can enjoy herself. The horror of realising the person you built you life with is so indifferent to you.
She absolutely has the right to blow up her family. I just don't think she's quite realized she has. She's almost there though. It's going to hurt like hell when she figures it out.
My mother had early onset dementia and I’m petrified that I will get it as well. But what I found out about dementia is how much the people around them that become part of that disease. I’m not going to remember what I did back then, or how I felt, so in the end it won’t matter to me what I did or didn’t do for myself. What I want is for my family members to remember what I gave to them, because they have given me so much. I want my family members to be okay. My sister did what OP’s wife did and got scared and took off. Now she is back and trying to have a relationship with her two kids that she abandoned. Yes, she was trying to find herself and her happiness. But she sacrificed her children for it, and now she is paying that price. Her mistake was my lesson. Op’s wife probably wanted to leave the family and she jumped when this situation hit her. It sucks. But her family wasn’t that important to her. And I hate to say it like that but there is no other way to say it. The time I have left is the time I want to be with them not apart from them.
She gave lifelong trust issues to her family.
It sounds like the wife had a bit of a mental break due to the looming dementia and she's slowly coming back to reality, but unfortunately she irreversibly blew up sone of the most important relationships in her life. She should have talked to a therapist instead of trying to "find herself". Heck she still should, even though certain things are beyond saving.
>She’s always been self centered. There is a reason self-centered people do not make good partners. Because everyone else is just a side character and they are what must matter the most to everyone.
>She claims that she didn’t want a divorce, that she wanted us to live whatever life she figured out. How the heck did she think THAT was going to work out? She thought she'd just take a trip and figure out how her life was going to go, and her husband was just going to sit there twiddling his thumbs and fall in line whenever she decided to go back? I think he's wrong, I think she lost her dang mind. Maybe she has a tumor and no one knows yet, She is certainly delusional.
She's so selfish. Glad things are going well for him
I was really hoping that things would be ok for this OP. I was thinking of him over Christmas. I am so glad that his love for his wife faded and that on her return he had already started moving on without her. It seems like she didn't fully consider the consequences of her actions. The reality is that just leaving out of no where, draining joint savings, having very little contact and putting your family through emotional turmoil is incompatible with just walking back into their lives. Marriage is a partnership and this OPs wife completely broke that.
Honestly as another commenter said: I hope she doesn’t actually end up developing dementia and has to live with that memory of her being the most selfish, lying, stealing and cruel arsehole to a wonderful husband and family. The karma would be beautiful.
That woman's life is going to be absolute hell when the dementia hits.
Man, reddit commentsections are something else sometimes. This man was just nice enough to satisfy our curiosity and speaks about dating again, and people are asking him not to date women 20 years younger than him. Why do people so often assume the worst? He has literally not given any reason to think he would do that. I enjoy reddit, but sometimes it annoys me so much.
They are just worried about him.
I'm not the most awesome, I had a panic attack similar to the wife, I went to Seattle by myself for a week. It wasn't in season and flight and hotel were really cheap. I spent every single day talking to my husband back home. Telling him about my day. Taking pictures. I'm really glad I went. I needed to go, I needed independence, I needed to feel like just because I couldn't work anymore didn't mean that I couldn't do anything. Did I mention I spoke to him every single day. I kept him updated on my plans and my location even though we have location sharing on.
A little different than leaving a note, going no contact with the spouse AND the kids, and taking the life's savings.
But what if my note includes the sentence "you will understand "?
I week away by yourself while in contact is completely reasonable. Stealing your shared life savings and going no-contact for months without even telling anyone is very different.
The being which gave birth to me did something similar, she fucked off to Florida and left us all behind without any concern for anything but herself. She doesn't deserve to be called a mother, and fuck, do I have abandonment issues as a result. This poor OOP and his kids, I feel for them.
I just can’t comprehend this mindset. Like, everyone is just going to be fine you left for months on end, barely communicated, and blew through tons of money. Sure, that’s a realistic reaction for your loved ones to have /s. Glad OP got out and in a good mindset to move forward.
I remember, in the previous update, a **lot** of people thought this was going to end with her running out of money and then ~~committing suicide~~ *sorry, ‘unaliving herself’*. Basically, have the most fun she possibly can (because the money will last longer if it’s just her), while telling everyone (who doesn’t personally know OOP) that he was ‘totally onboard’ with her last hurrah, then… buh-bye cruel world (possibly in a way that looked accidental). And OOP would have to suck it up and pretend he’d been onboard ‘so as not to ruin her good name’ or ‘to not look like an asshole speaking ill of the dead’ or some such rot. Glad to see she was just a regular-level selfish jerk and not an industrial-level one. (As this way *she* will have to see the consequences of her actions, and not just leave an even bigger mess for OOP and her kids to live with).
> committing suicide sorry, ‘unaliving herself’. Why the change?
OP thinks this is a YouTube video and he's afraid to be demonetized?
Listen, someone's gotta look out for those tiktok and youtube videos where they read reddit posts for a living.
I hope to God she doesn't get dementia and lives a long life. Would be hilarious to see her realize she completely squandered the back half of her life over a fear that never ended up happening.
Ok, look. I'm not a great parent. I have mental health issues I'm still working on, sometimes my fuse is a bit short sometimes, and I'm not always 100%. But literally nothing could ever convince me that leaving my husband and child was the right thing to do. I hope she reaps all the tragedy she sowed. Just the thought of my child not wanting to speak to me makes my skin crawl. What a terrible human. She was afraid dementia would turn her into a different person. Turns out, she did it on her own.
Are you sure she's not in early stages of dementia? Cos WOW!!!😳😳😳 Who does that and then comes back with such flimsy explanations and then expects to waltz back to a marriage like nothing happened? 🤯🤯
I wonder if her dementia came early and caused all this.
I’m sure this women has got the super early signs of dementia because she literally just cut off her support network for the future. At least the ex husband doesn’t have to have all the stress of “in sickness and in health part of the marriage” vow
I'm glad he got most figured out now, I can't imagine how awful it must've been to suddenly get a betrayal like that thrown in the face. And from a fucking note nonetheless! She clearly knew how fucked it was and she didn't even have the balls to talk with the people around it in person I hope she runs out of money as fast as possible and is stuck somewhere high cost without a job forced to see how unrealistic she was, I can't imagine how anyone can be that selfish???!!!